I think, perhaps, we need to read Paul more closely. I think what he does do is use categories of natural and unnatural, and then he says that those engaging in practices in the latter category have been turned over to their depraved mind and are (using my own terminology here) in very serious trouble.
I’m not sure that Paul would affirm the existence of the social constructs that we have today, of the “gay” person and the “straight” person.
I think he does affirm that there is again a healthy, natural sexual practice between men and women who are married and committed to children. Then there’s everything else, which is not part of the Kingdom of God....and part of that other basket of everything else there is also something very unnatural and especially depraved and that is what we know as (and Paul knew as) sex acts between people of the same sex.
Again, I’m not sure Paul would buy into the recent category that the left insisted that we adopt, that of the “gay” person.
Thoughts?
I’d like to hear your reply as I am generally sympathetic to the thrust of argument in this article...and I love it when we turn the left back on itself. But I am primarily committed to what Scripture says above all else, and I’m not entirely sure that the article does that testimony enough justice.
I've often thought that Paul's characterization of homosexuality (or is it just homosexual behavior?) as "vile affections" (Rom 11:26 KJV) to be quite similar to what modern society is describing as "homosexual orientation", although Paul is certainly adding a moral componant to his characterization.
What the author says here is partly true, and partly false:
“The Bible never called homosexuality an abomination. Nor could it have, for as we have seen, Leviticus predates any conception of sexual orientation by a couple of millennia at least. What the Scriptures condemn is sodomy, regardless of who commits it or why. And yet, as I have argued throughout, in our own day homosexuality deserves the abominable label, and heterosexuality does too.”
The law condemns acts, that much is spot on.
The problem is that Paul does in fact state point blank that those committing the unnatural acts are in an identifiable place outside of God’s grace and under God’s wrath (they have been turned over to their depraved mind).
So....it seems....that in a sense, Paul does “sort of” affirm the depraved category as a category of persons who are committing such acts.
But, Paul also spoke out with perfect clarity against categorizing followers of Christ as being bound by sin...so I think the author is right in that Paul would not endorse the contemporary of “homosexual” and “heterosexual” in the identity game of today....anymore than he would endorse someone calling themself a “Thief” and giving that social identity its own sinful reality.
So that’s the rub.
I think this article is good....but I don’t think it is yet perfect.
That's a great analysis!
However, I would add that the author is also saying that, for example, sodomy is sodomy, whether it's between two men or between a man and a woman.
sitetest